Good day sunshine

Nothing compares to waking up on the first day of your holiday, with a whole two weeks still in front of you!

With the sun trying to creep in around the edges of our curtains, they were promptly opened, the sun's reflection in the mirrored surface of the estuary almost blinding us in the process.

We tend to take things slowly on our first day, to recuperate from the long journey of the day before.

This time, a visit to nearby Cardigan was on the cards. Its Welsh name, Aberteifi,  refers to its position by the mouth (aber) of the River Teifi, and in fact it lies on the opposite site of the estuary, which is visible from our cottage windows, at the point where Pembrokeshire meets Ceredigion.

Between 2006 and 2008, the previously considered rather scruffy town (the lowest of the lowest as it was succinctly put by one of the wardens of a property we visited) underwent a face-lift, restoring many of the town centre's shop facades as well as the quayside.

As a result, in a survey earlier this year, Cardigan was named one of the best places to live in Wales !

It is now a busy market town, with a good mix of independent and high street shops, and I counted at least seven charity shops!

As it was a Sunday, quite a lot of the shops were closed, but we were delighted to find that one charity shop, Barnardo's, was open for business, and soon our first purchases were made: within minutes, Mr. S. had found a good quality straw hat and I left the shop with a handmade striped cotton summer dress.

There was also a small car boot being held in the parking lot of a house clearance company.  Inside their premises, a whole corner was dedicated to deadstock 1970s/1980s clothing, which they'd bought up from a boutique, where I found a black and white print cotton dress, complete with its original "Louis Caring" label.

By now, we were getting hungry and were looking for a quiet spot to eat our picnic. I remembered a small park just minutes from the high street, with a gazebo (where we sheltered from the rain last year) as well as a couple of benches. As luck would have it, we had the place to ourselves.

The park is just minutes from the start of the Ceredigion Coast Path, along the estuary, so we walked it as far as a field we remembered from a previous visit, from which our cottage can be spotted in the far distance, on the opposite side of the estuary, which runs at the bottom of the field, hidden by trees.

The cottage is part of the small cluster of houses approximately in the middle of the photo, above the yellow house.

We finished our day with our first of many cups of Cappuccino, but not before visiting the parish church of St. Mary's, which we'd never been to before, but which we'd been catching glimpses of whenever we drove in or out of town on the bypass.

The church was closed, but we wandered around the atmospheric old churchyard, with its higgledy-piggledy gravestones, the oldest of which were lined up against the wall.

The next day, Monday, was a real scorcher, so we thought we'd go down to the seaside.

Llangrannog, 13 miles from Cardigan,  is a small coastal village in Ceredigion, lying in a narrow valley, to which the road descends steeply, and with quite a few hairpin bends, through woods with a lingering smell of wild garlic.

At the end, you are rewarded by not one, but two beaches, the one of Llangrannog itself and to the north, Cilborth beach, which is either accessed by steps down the cliff or from Llangrannog beach when the tide is low.

But we were not there for the beaches, however enticing. No, foolhardy that we are, we decided to take a walk along the coast path, to Ynys Lochtyn, a peninsula and small island just north of Llangrannog, said to be Ceredigion’s most scenic section of coastal path.

First, we had to climb our way out of the valley by way of steps and a stony path, going up, and up ...

From the footpath there were wonderful views down to Llangrannog and beyond.

After some more climbing the ancient hill fort of Pen y Badell and the outline of Ynys Lochtyn appeared in front of us, the silhouette of which has been used as the icon for the Ceredigion Coast Path.

We admired the views over Ynys Lochtyn and found a shady place for a picnic, taking out our binoculars to watch the vertiginous antics of a couple of adventure seekers below the cliffs of the island, which can be reached from the peninsula at low tide. Just the thought is turning my legs into jelly, so not for me, thank you!

Instead of finishing our circular walk by trudging through some fields, away from the coast, eventually ending up on the road into the village, we decided to retrace our steps along the coast path, but not before walking down to the peninsula itself.

While Jos was sat looking out over the bay, the water of which looked as tranquil as a lake's, I walked around, taking in the magnificent seascape surrounding us.

It was only when we wanted to rejoin the coast path (it's the ridge just below the darker green section of Pen y Badell) that we realized what I climb we had ahead of us, and we had to take several breathers toiling up the steep path.

But instead of finding a cool breeze, the coast path, which runs partly enclosed between hedges, was a heat trap, and we arrived back in Llangrannog badly in need of refreshments.

Before heading home to our cool cottage, we stopped off in Cardigan for some food shopping, visiting a charity shop or two along the way, and finding the first three of my brooches in a shop supporting Welsh charity Tŷ Hafan.

To be continued ...

Into each life some rain must fall

Ok, but not during my measly two weeks’ holiday, right? At least, not too much of it. But then again: Wales, what did I expect? It wouldn’t be as green and lush without rain, and lots of it, would it?

It all started very promising as we arrived in glorious sunshine. Here I am posing with a view of the Teifi Estuary behind me (left) and in front of our little cottage (right).

But appearances can be deceptive, and we woke up on Sunday morning all ready to enjoy our very first day, only to be greeted by grey skies, shortly followed by showers, which later developed into, you guessed it: rain!

We had only planned a visit to nearby Cardigan, where not only there was a small car boot sale, some shops, including one charity shop, were open too. It was only raining lightly when we left, so I opted to wear a dress, which wasn't the best of choices.

Striking gold at both the car boot, where I bought the first of many brooches, and the chazza, where I found this lovely handbag, did compensate for the dismal weather a bit, though!

Rain again on Monday, but that soon improved, and we managed to go the beach, albeit wearing quite a few layers.

After a mainly dry Tuesday, rain made another appearance on Wednesday. 

In fact, it started pouring down so heavily that, after a car picnic in a nature reserve car park, we abandoned all our plans for the day, and drove to the nearest town, Lampeter, for a spot of shopping. 

By the time we got there, wouldn’t you know it, the sun had come out.

Thursday was a gorgeously sunny day, which we spent at the seaside, but it was followed by two days of such unstable weather that we ditched any plans we had for longer walks and did something else instead, including more charity shopping and a visit to an antique centre.

These are just some of our finds. Clockwise from top left: little pyrex jug, new-to-me pyjamas, books and more books and a small vinyl handbag.

At first, Sunday didn’t look too bad, but clouds starting gathering while we were having breakfast. Nevertheless, we had hopes of it staying dry enough for a local walk starting from nearby Poppit Sands. The weather gods must have been laughing as we were putting on our walking shoes in the pouring rain. Surely it would stop raining any minute, so off we went. 

But no: instead it started pelting down with a vengeance. As luck would have it, the walk, which was initially on a small tarmacked lane, soon veered off into an grassy path between banks of greenery. Needless to say, by the time we were back at Poppit Sands we were soaked through and through.

The rest of the day was spent drying our clothes and relaxing in our cosy little cottage.

We got our hopes up on Monday, waking up to some sunshine, which for once stayed with us all day, although it was a bit chilly for the time of year, especially on the coast path.

Not to mention, very windy indeed. Just look at my hair!

That night, the forecast said rainy and windy for the rest of the week, which was obviously a bit of a letdown and called for yet another change of plans.

On Tuesday, a mere 15 minutes or so after we landed in the colourful seaside town of Aberaeron, our umbrellas had to come out, so we hit the town’s one and only charity shop, British Red Cross, locally called Harrods, which we remembered from last year. 

Ever on the lookout for brooches, I was in luck as they had quite a nice selection, and I came away with six, making a sum total of 18 brooches, all found at charity shops and one car boot:

Let’s forgot about Wednesday, shall we? It must have started raining before six in the morning. Sleeping right under the eaves, we could hear it pelting down without any letup. Indeed, it did not stop raining until the late afternoon. 

So, instead of showing you yet more rainy photographs, let's crack on and show you some more of our finds instead.

This set of luggage, comprising of a Constellation weekender and a vanity case, were found at two separate locations. Unfortunately, this is not our car I am posing in front, but the one which was conveniently parked next to ours.

We also bought another old bottle, which is joining the ever growing collection on our windowsill. This one is from Tenby.

This threesome of super cute little glass deer must be my favourite find, bought at the Oxfam shop in Cardigan. The largest one is only 8 centimeter high. 

They probably date from the 1950s. We paid only £ 1,99 for them, but they seem to command much higher prices on-line.

Unfortunately, the weather only improved slightly during the last days of our holiday, but at least it stopped raining from time to time, so that we were able to squeeze in some more coast path walking.

All too soon it was time to once more say goodbye to our little cottage with its ever-changing views of the estuary, always inviting me to take one more photograph.

I'm leaving you now with a photograph taken from our car on our hellish return journey, involving queues on the M4 and M25 as well as torrential rain on our final stretch to the Channel Tunnel on the M20.

I'm promising a more sunny outlook in my next post, so please stay tuned!